(This is the final countdown. One of the last chapters…)

PART 10: as told by Claire

The air was dank and bitingly cool. I spluttered and coughed when I woke, lifting myself weakly off the cold floor.

"Hello?" I called out, and my voice resounded off the walls and sent ricocheting echoes in all directions.

I heard someone groan nearby—Cam. "Cam!" I exclaimed, crawling towards the sound of his voice. It was dark. I could barely distinguish Cam's motionless form, directly in front of me now.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"That didn't go so well, did it?" he said doubtfully.

I shook my head. "Not well at all."

Essentially, Dempsey had tried to persuade the armed men into giving him a minute to speak to the crowd. The reporters and journalists had begged rabidly for the SWAT team to consent this request, considering it would make the story twice as interesting, but the team refused. They'd pointed their tranquilizer guns, loaded with heavy sedatives, and aimed at us. That was the last I remembered.

I moved slowly around the room on my hands and knees, searching for the others. I located Massie and Dempsey, unconscious in the corner, slumped against the wall. Derrick was at the other side of the room, snoring softly. When I moved towards the other side of the room in search of Landon, my head hit something—a wall, presumably. But it wasn't a wall. They were bars.

I gasped involuntarily. "We're in a prison cell!" I cried.

Now the inexplicable lack of furniture, windows and doors made sense. They'd sedated us, and then locked us up. But where was Landon?

"I feel dizzy," Cam moaned. I crawled to the center of the cell to comfort him. Minutes later the remainder of the occupants of the room woke. Massie woke with a start, which woke Dempsey beside her. Derrick's snoring ceased, and he mumbled a little before joining us in the center of the prison cell.

"We're in a jail. Aren't we?" he asked in a monotone. He seemed more irritated than afraid.

"Yes," I sighed.

Massie very quickly took note of Landon's absence. "Where's Landon?" she demanded suddenly.

"Not here," I responded, grimacing.

"Where did they take him?" She struggled to stand, and met the bars.

"Stay back!" a new voice warned. A guard came into view in the dim light. He brandished not one, but two tranquilizing guns.

"Don't try any tricks with those bars, girl," he boomed. "I know you're capable."

"I think you've mistaken me for someone else," she said dryly, glancing down at Cam. "And he's not in any state to phase at the moment."

He jabbed his guns at her. "Back I said!"

Massie obeyed silently, choosing to sit beside Dempsey.

"Do you know why we're here?" I asked the guard politely.

"I'm not permitted to disclose any information on that subject," the guard recited quickly. Evidently, his superior had drilled that line into him.

"So where's our other friend?" Derrick wondered aloud.

"Stop asking questions!" the guard said sharply.

"Massie? Maybe could you help some of us out of here?" Cam asked meekly.

"Not without finding Landon," she said resolutely. "And not without Dempsey either."

Massie approached the bars, smiling devilishly. "You don't have much of a chance," she said sweetly. "There's one of you. And five of us, maybe six if we can find Landon—and we can escape pretty much anything."

To my surprise, the guard laughed. "You think there's only of me? There are twenty-nine guards surrounding this cell. I'm the only one in view, to keep the noise down."

Massie frowned. "Who's leading this operation?"

The guard stiffened and said loudly, "I'm not permitted to disclose any"—

"Okay, okay, we got that part," Derrick interrupted him briskly.

"But it's not the mayor," Massie said, perhaps to herself, as she paced back and forth between the guards. "The mayor of Foster City wouldn't be this disorganized."

"Disorganized," the guard scoffed, tightening his grip on his tranquilizer guns. "What makes you say that?"

"Incompetent guards, that's what," Massie replied smoothly. She stopped pacing and gripped the bars, pressing her face into them, watching the guard. "If you were a good guard, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

The guard opened his mouth to respond, then reconsidered.

Massie smiled triumphantly and turned back to us. "Now, how do we find Landon?"

"He's the only one with clairvoyance," Cam grumbled. "So we're going to have to find him the old fashioned way."

"And without being seen," Dempsey added sleepily.

"Fine by me." Massie turned to the guard, who was watching us converse intently. "You'll probably get fired for this," she warned him. He frowned. She appeared beside him soundlessly and had de-armed him in seconds. She tossed the weapons into the cell.

The guard produced a pocket-sized tazer. "I ain't that helpless," he said quietly, but the pathetic fight that ensued proved otherwise. He jabbed the tazer at Massie, who had already appeared behind him and knocked the weapon from his hand.

Massie picked it up and smiled faintly. "No, I'm pretty sure you're wrong."

She hit him over the head with the tazer and dropped it into her pocket for future use. Then she leaned over, snatched a key from his belt and tested it in the lock of the cell door.

"Well, that would've been too easy anyway," she muttered, tossing the useless key on the unconscious guard.

She planted her hands on her hips and sighed. "He doesn't have the key. I can teleport all of you out, except…"

"You can go without me," Dempsey offered, making an effort to stifle his disappointment. "Honestly."

"We'll come back for you, after we find Landon," Massie promised. One by one we were freed from the prison cell via teleportation.

Dempsey sat, dejected, in the corner, watching us make our effortless escape. "Good luck," he called out to us.

We all murmured half-hearted thanks. I could tell Masse was especially guilt-ridden about leaving Dempsey behind.

We wandered aimlessly for several minutes, through dimly lit hallways, with no guards, no security. The guard had claimed there were twenty-nine others surrounding the cell, but maybe he had been bluffing to scare us out of attempting escape.

It was the only half-clever thing he'd accomplished in his brief time guarding us.

"It doesn't make sense," Massie whispered as we progressed further, seeing only empty cells, no Landon. "Foster City isn't that stupid. They wouldn't put one guard in charge of five supers. And a stupid, idiot guard at that."

More endless hallways. More emptiness. At one point Massie offered to take us each to a safe place, away from Foster City. She offered to teleport us to a far off destination, and she could do the rescuing.

"You can't save both Landon and Dempsey all by yourself, no offense," I pointed out, though I was pleased that she was selfless and brave enough to even suggest such a thing.

Finally, we found Landon. But it wasn't as if I'd imagined.

He was in a cell, all right—but he was chained to a wall inside the cell.

"Landon!" Massie shrieked immediately. She had already appeared inside the cell.

"Get out of here," he said weakly. "Go."

"What?" Massie pulled feebly at the chains that bound him to the wall. "Why have they done this to you?"

"Massie, go!" he ordered her urgently.

Cam, Derrick and I watched the spectacle passively. There wasn't much we could do to help.

"Landon, what's happened?" Massie asked, finally giving up on her hopeless effort to release him from the chains.

"Massie, they've injected me with a special kind of chemical," he explained, coughing. "I don't know what they're up to, but I'm pretty sure I have an idea of what the chemical will do."

"What?" Massie demanded frantically. "What will it do?"

"It's making my powers flare up," he said. "I have…no control."

"I've heard of it," Cam interjected. "It's called Imorion. I've heard that some weak supers use it to magnify their abilities."

"I know what they're doing, Massie," Landon said softly. "They're making me dangerous. If I can't control my abilities, hell will break loose." He interrupted himself to cough. "Foster City is trying to prove just how dangerous we are."

"Impossible," she gasped.

"That's awful," I whispered.

"I heard the guards talking," Landon continued. "Some kind of display or demonstration, they're arranging it. They're clever, these people, be careful."

"Clever?" Massie repeated the word in a wry tone. "They posted one guard to defend us. And we haven't seen a single soul in the halls."

Landon laughed weakly. "That's it, don't you get it? They want you to think they're stupid and disorganized. That guard was probably acting."

Cam, Derrick and exchanged looks.

"That makes sense," Cam admitted, though it was clear he didn't want to say it.

Then, a line of guards marched into the hallway. Cam grabbed my hand and yanked me into the cell, along with Derrick. We pressed ourselves into the darkness of the cell, waiting and watching.

The leading guard called out a sharp order, and the line stopped right in front of the cell. The lead guard, an aged man with circular spectacles and tufts of white hair, inserted a key into the cell door and swung it open.

"Hello there!" he called out, smiling. He didn't even seem surprised that we were in Landon's cell.

He calmly unlocked Landon's chains. Landon slumped to the ground from exhaustion, but the guard caught him and began dragging him from the cell.

"Hey!" Massie cried.

Four guards stepped into the cell and quietly took hold of each one of us.

"We're all armed, so don't try anything funny," the lead guard warned.

The guard who shackled my hands and began guiding me down the hall with the other marching guards was the one who had previously guarded our cell.

He grinned deviously at me. "Would you say my performance was Oscar-worthy?" the southern drawl he once spoke with was gone. The cowardly hesitation, the stupidity, was all a portrayal.

"It's not hard to play a character you share a lot in common with," I growled indignantly.

The guard only laughed in response.

The guards marched us along the hallway until we reached an unmarked door.

"It's time to watch the fight!" the lead guard announced excitedly. Cheers followed his announcement.

We filed into the room. It was a large room, with a high ceiling, and chairs on the borders, for an audience presumably.

In the center of the room was Dempsey. Two guards flanked him. His hands were gloved and tied, and most of his skin was covered, for the guards' protection, maybe.

The guards sat us down in the chairs and took seats beside us. They pointed their guns in our faces and spoke in low voices about the consequences of attempting escape, or assault.

The Lead guard guided Landon to the center. He released him, and Landon crumpled.

"Those chemicals really got you down, eh?" the lead-guard asked laughingly.

There was a video camera set up in the far corner, aimed at the center.

I swore under my breath. I knew what was going to happen here. I didn't want to believe that Foster City's occupants could be that sick and twisted.

Then a woman swept into the room, surrounded by guards. I didn't need to count how many guards there were. I knew there were twenty-nine, just as he had claimed.

The woman was Massie's aunt—Jose—the evil, bitter, anti-super woman who had abused Massie in her earlier years. I couldn't guess as to why or how she was here.

I didn't think she would go to such drastic measures to prove her animosity towards supers or Massie—or both.

"Jose?" Massie cried, incredulous.

Jose merely smiled at her. "Let the fight begin!"